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When it comes to adapting the term marriage to a gay 'union', you need to look for the hidden agenda. Those who push the issue want to be seen as normal. Usurping the word for their own, moves them in their minds from the abnormal to normal. A civil union accomplishes what most gay people are after and if that is not enough for them then you have the hidden agenda.
Remember, when the missionaries tried to convert so called heathens, they took their celebrations and replaced them with missionary celebrations. Holloween comes to mind lo those many years ago.

Yours is a tough case. However, I favor gay marriage for far different reasons. Consider the pleasures of alimony. Heterosexuals get the privilege of paying a percentage of their income to an ex-spouse, until that spouse remarries. Why is that legal extortion reserved only for heterosexuals? If you want equality, they can get the good with the bad.

Now, if people have an issue with a legally binding relationship being called 'marriage'; that's ok. Let's call it 'Bonding'. Marriage contains religous and parentage issues that would simply not be applicable to a gay 'Bonding', 'union' or whatever.

Basically, what I have heard from the gay community is that they want equal legal footing with the hetero majority. For example:

A couple is 'bonded', and one of them is in the hospital from a car accident. The 'spouse' would wish the legal authority to be able to grant permission for a life-saving proceedure at the hospital. At this point in time, this is reserved ONLY to heterosexual couples. Why?

Now, let's say that the injured party survives. The 'bonded' mate may be kept from the room because he is neither related or married to the sick person. Yet, to the injured partner, the one kept from his bedside is the one that would do the most good.

Now, let's consider that the injured mate passes on. In a marriage, the surviving spouse immediately inherits all property, money and possessions of the deceased. However, with a gay couple the surviving mate may have to fight his partner's family for the house, car, retirement and everything that the couple built up together over the years. The family, who may have contributed absolutely nothing would gain half of what a gay couple had built. Why?

These are 'real world' issues; and without a legal recourse, the Gay community is being denied 'Equal Protection' under the law. Regardless of how we may feel about the homosexual acts, how do you justify that?

I would move that to preserve the dignity of marriage, an alternative legally binding relationship be created, called "union", "bonding" or "sheep-diddle" as far as I am concerned. But, grant the gay community the same LEGAL (and only legal) privileges that the rest of the population enjoys, and the problems will go away. As it is not a 'marriage', churches need not recognize it. As the Gay community will soon learn, divorces are unpleasant, expensive and are a consequence of getting legally joined.